Location input mistake correction

ABSTRACT

A system for automatically correcting a mistaken geocoded location input. A wireless device such as a cell phone ranks possible location input based on edit distance, which is a ‘confidence factor’. If there is no perfect match, then a list of geocode options is returned, preferably sorted by the score. The ‘closeness’ is derived by looking at the edit distance to go from the input to the matched address. Edit distance is defined herein as the number of insertion/deletion/replacement operations to go from input location to the possible matched location. In one embodiment, an option list, or ‘pick list’, may be provided based on an edit distance scoring system. The edit distance scoring system is preferably based on a number of keystrokes difference between the input location name and the possible matched location name.

The present application claims priority from U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 60/798,330, entitled “Location Input Mistake Correction”to Ahuja et al., filed May 8, 2006, the entirety of which is expresslyincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to wireless and long distancecarriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and information contentdelivery services/providers and long distance carriers. Moreparticularly, it relates to location based services, and mostparticularly to navigation using location based services.

2. Background of the Related Art

The demand for wireless communication services are ever increasing inresponse to a society that is becoming increasingly mobile. As a result,wireless devices, and in particular cell phones, have become ubiquitouswith day-to-day life. A majority of people in the United States now owncell phones.

Location services are a more recent advanced feature made available foruse with wireless devices, perhaps most notably to provide location of acell phone. The general goal of location-based services is toautomatically provide location-based information to a requestingapplication. The requesting application may be operating on the wirelessdevice itself, or even on an external application running, e.g., onanother device in the wireless or other network. Some exemplaryapplications that use location services include mapping applicationsthat show interesting places in a vicinity of the wireless device'scurrent global position, and navigation from a current location.Location based services are available for wireless devices such aspersonal digital assistants (PDAs) as well as for cell phones.

A geospatial entity object code (Geocode) is code that represents ageospatial coordinate measurement of an exact geographic location on (orabove, or below) the earth. Many location-based applications on currentwireless phones allow a user of the wireless phone to manually input ageocode location, and get in response a location based service, e.g.,navigation to a desired destination.

A geocoded representation is derived from latitude, longitude, altitude,date, local time, global time, and other geospatial attributes, e.g.,how the area is coded (number, letter, mixture of both, other); whichpart of the earth is covered (whole earth, land, water, a continent, acountry); what kind of area or location is coded (country, county,airport, railstation, city); and/or whether an area or a point is coded.

In practice, a geocoded location may be entered by the name of thelocation. While entry of a location name is much more user-friendly thanan all-natural numerical input relating to latitude, longitude, etc., itis subject to error when input by the user.

FIG. 3 shows a conventional system for assisting a user manuallyinputting a location name.

In particular, as shown in FIG. 3, a user manually inputs a first letter301, then a second letter 302, then a third letter 303 of a locationname. The conventional system 300 provides possible matches to the firstthree sequential letters entered by the user, typically presented inalphabetical order.

The conventional system aims to shorten a user's need to enter allletters of a given location name. However, if the user doesn't know howto properly spell the location, particularly in the earliest letters inthe location name, the conventional system will not be able to presentthe user with a small, focused list from which to choose a location.Moreover, if the user has misspelled any letter in the location name,conventional systems quite simply will in fact exclude, rather thaninclude, the intended location name. Furthermore, even with theconventional system aimed at assisting a user to input a geocodedlocation correctly in the first place, the conventional system has noway of automatically correcting a mistaken geocode once it is entered bythe user.

There is a need for an improved location input technique on a wirelessphone.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the principles of the invention, a method andapparatus for automatically correcting an input location including atypographical mistake comprises comparing an input location parameter toa plurality of possible location parameter matches. The plurality ofpossible location parameter matches are ranked based on edit distancebetween the input location parameter and the possible locationparameter. A best ranked one of the plurality of possible locationparameters is provided as a correction to the input location parameter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent tothose skilled in the art from the following description with referenceto the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a system for automatically correcting a mistaken geocodedlocation name input, in accordance with the principles of the presentinvention.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary method of automatically correcting a mistakengeocoded location name input, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

FIG. 3 shows a conventional system for assisting a user manuallyinputting a location name.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

The invention relates to manual or semi-manual input of a geocodelocation. The present inventors have realized that a geocode location issubject to erroneous manual input by the user, particularly using thekeypad of a typical wireless phone. If the user makes a mistake duringmanual input of a location name, the geocode will likely fail and anerror message would be generated. This wastes network resources, not tomention the user's time.

Existing technology does not automatically fix spelling mistakes ingeocode location input. Conventional systems may give a user locationsmatching the contiguous letters entered to that point by the user, butthe user must spell the beginning few or more letters of the locationcorrectly to narrow the field of possible choices for location, whichmay be presented to the user. However, the existing technology isdisadvantageous because a user unsure of the spelling of the beginningof a given location's name may be unable to manually enter a location.

FIG. 1 shows a system for automatically correcting a mistaken geocodedlocation name input, in accordance with the principles of the presentinvention.

In particular, as shown in FIG. 1, a wireless device such as a cellphone 110 includes a geocoded location manual input monitor 100, adatabase of possible location matches 102, and a possible match rankerthat ranks possible location input based on edit distance 104.

Preferably the geocoded location manual input monitor 100, possiblematches database 102, and/or possible match ranker based on editdistance module 104 are resident in the wireless device 100. However,any or all of these elements 100-104 may be alternatively located in acentral location, e.g., in a server at the wireless base station incommunication with the wireless device 100.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, the geocodedlocation manual input monitor 100 looks for a best match for locationinput based on edit distance from possible matches in the possiblematches database 102. Edit distance ranks correction options based on a‘confidence factor’.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, given ageocode location/address input, the geocoding indices are searched forclose matches. All the ‘closely’ matching entries are evaluated fortheir closeness to the input, thereby giving a ‘confidence factor’ orscore. If there is no perfect match, then we return a list of geocodeoptions sorted by the score. The ‘closeness’ is derived by looking atthe edit distance to go from the input to the matched address.

Edit distance is defined herein as the number ofinsertion/deletion/replacement operations to go from input location tothe possible matched location. In one embodiment, an option list, or‘pick list’, may be provided based on an edit distance scoring system.The edit distance scoring system is preferably based on a number ofkeystrokes difference between the input location name and the possiblematched location name.

For example, a user might intend to input “Maine”, but insteadincorrectly inputs “Main”. The edit distance between the input “Maine”and the possible match “Main”, “Main” vs the correct “Maine”, is 1deletion, or 1 keystroke score.

Using the edit distance scoring system, there are three (3) types ofkeystroke mistakes: an insertion mistake, a deletion mistake, and areplacement of character mistake. In the disclosed embodiments all typesof mistakes are ranked equally. It is within the principles of theinvention to score the types of mistakes differently. A difference inthe type of scoring may be determined empirically.

Automatic correction of an input location may be determined based onvarious elements of the input location name. For instance, a geocodedlocation may be input not by name (or in addition to name), but insteadby another identifying parameter, e.g., on:

-   -   street prefix,    -   street base name,    -   street type,    -   street suffix, and/or    -   city.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary method of automatically correcting a mistakengeocoded location name input, in accordance with the principles of thepresent invention.

In particular, as shown in step 200 of FIG. 2, a user inputs a geocodedlocation into their wireless device.

In step 202, the user's manual input is compared to the entries in thepossible match database 102.

In step 204, entries in the possible match database 102 are ranked basedon edit distance to what the user input.

In step 206, the best ranked match is selected, and presented as theinput geocoded location. Preferably the ‘best’ ranked match is thatwhich has the highest numerical ranking based on edit distance toentries in the possible matches database 102.

If the user input a correctly spelled location in the first place, thebest ranked match, and the highest scoring match with no errors, wouldbe the correct location.

The invention has particular applicability to use in cell phones andother wireless devices.

While the invention has been described with reference to the exemplaryembodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able to makevarious modifications to the described embodiments of the inventionwithout departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A method of automatically correcting an input location including atypographical mistake, comprising: comparing an input geographic searchparameter, formulated by a physical wireless device, to a plurality ofpossible inexactly matching geographic search parameters; ranking saidplurality of possible inexactly matching geographic search parametersbased on an edit distance between said input geographic search parameterand each of said plurality of possible inexactly matching geographicsearch parameters, said edit distance being a number of edit operationsneeded to go from said input geographic search parameter to a possibleinexactly matching geographic search parameter; and providing, to saidphysical wireless device, a best ranked one of said plurality ofinexactly matching possible location parameters based on a geographicproximity between said best ranked one of said plurality of possibleinexactly matching geographic search parameters and a current locationof said physical wireless device.
 2. The method of automaticallycorrecting an input location including a typographical mistake accordingto claim 1, wherein: said edit distance is a total edit distanceincluding an edit distance of all remaining letters in said possibleinexactly matching geographic search parameter.
 3. The method ofautomatically correcting an input location including a typographicalmistake according to claim 1, wherein: said input geographic searchparameter is a name of a location.
 4. The method of automaticallycorrecting an input location including a typographical mistake accordingto claim 1, wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a streetprefix of said location.
 5. The method of automatically correcting aninput location including a typographical mistake according to claim 1,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street base name ofsaid location.
 6. The method of automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 1,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street type of saidlocation.
 7. The method of automatically correcting an input locationincluding a typographical mistake according to claim 1, wherein: saidinput geographic search parameter is a street suffix of said location.8. The method of automatically correcting an input location including atypographical mistake according to claim 1, wherein: said inputgeographic search parameter is a city name of said location. 9.Apparatus for automatically correcting an input location including atypographical mistake, comprising: means for comparing an inputgeographic search parameter, formulated by a physical wireless device,to a plurality of possible inexactly matching geographic searchparameters; means for ranking said plurality of possible inexactlymatching geographic search parameters based on an edit distance betweensaid input geographic search parameter and each of said plurality ofpossible inexactly matching geographic search parameters, said editdistance being a number of edit operations needed to go from said inputgeographic search parameter to a possible inexactly matching geographicsearch parameter; and means for providing, to said physical wirelessdevice, a best ranked one of said plurality of inexactly matchingpossible location parameters based on a geographic proximity betweensaid best ranked one of said plurality of possible inexactly matchinggeographic search parameters and a current location of said physicalwireless device.
 10. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said edit distance is a total edit distance including an editdistance of all remaining letters in said possible inexactly matchinggeographic search parameter.
 11. The apparatus for automaticallycorrecting an input location including a typographical mistake accordingto claim 9, wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a name ofa location.
 12. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street prefix ofsaid location.
 13. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street base name ofsaid location.
 14. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street type of saidlocation.
 15. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a street suffix ofsaid location.
 16. The apparatus for automatically correcting an inputlocation including a typographical mistake according to claim 9,wherein: said input geographic search parameter is a city name of saidlocation.